The present invention relates to a multi-level conveyer that requires only limited space while providing increased conveyance length and time, such that articles conveyed on the conveyer can be sufficiently dried during conveyance.
It is known that most pulp-molded articles and baking-finished products must be dried during their manufacturing process. Particularly, the pulp-molded articles require sufficiently long drying to complete the production thereof. Articles or products having larger volume would require longer time of drying. To sufficiently dry articles or products, it necessitates a drying room with sufficient area and a surface conveyer with sufficient conveyance length, so that articles or products on the conveyer could be dried for a long enough time and fully meet the required dryness when they are removed from the conveyer.
For a surface conveyer, both the structural design thereof and the area of drying room for accommodating the conveyer limit the conveyance length available on the conveyer. Following are some disadvantages of the surface conveyer:
1. The drying room for accommodating the surface conveyer must be considerably large in area:
To successfully perform the drying, the surface conveyer must be able to provide a long conveyance path and therefore requires large drying room to accommodate the long conveyer, and costs for such large drying room will be inevitably high.
2. Higher power consumption is required for the surface conveyer in a large drying room:
With a large drying room, higher power must be consumed for the whole drying room to reach a minimum working temperature to perform the drying well.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop a multi-level conveyer to eliminate drawbacks existing in the conventional surface conveyer.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a multi-level conveyer that can be mounted in a limited space while provides conveyance length long enough for sufficient drying operation with reduced power consumption.
The multi-level conveyer according to the present invention includes a plurality of serially arranged carrier units, front and rear ends of which being connected to two parallelly extended chains. Chain wheels are provided at predetermined positions in the conveyer. When the chains pass the chain wheels, they turn by 90 degrees to move into a higher or a lower level of the conveyer. The carrier units are conveyed from a bottom level of the conveyer to a top level and then moved downward to sequentially pass every lower levels and the bottom level to complete one cycle of conveyance on the conveyer.
In the multi-level conveyer of the present invention, the carrier unit is disposed between the two parallel chains by separately connecting two ends of a central pivotal shaft of the carrier unit to the two chains, such that when the carrier unit is moved by the chains to pass any chain wheel and turns, the central pivotal shaft revolves relative to the carrier unit to keep the latter in a horizontal position.
Retainer walls are provided in the multi-level conveyer of the present invention at outer side of every turns and vertical conveyance paths to contact with outer sides of the carrier units passing the turns or the vertical paths, preventing the carrier units from rotating at the turns due to an inertia force or tilting at the vertical paths.
The carrier units of the present invention are provided at two lateral sides near two ends thereof with a pulley support each. The pulley support each includes a vertical bar having two pulleys mounted to upper and lower ends thereof. The pulleys rotatably contact with the retainer walls when the carrier unit passes a turn or a vertical path and therefore reduce friction between the carrier unit and the retainer wall.